To tell the truth.

They'd have to have balls the size of truck nuts to even call themselves the mouthpiece of the Lord.

So I spent a lot of time and a lot of money for a lying POS.

The truth, if that’s what you’re after, is rather bleak:

“Of all that we with such proud metaphors call “world history” and “truth” and “fame,” a heartless demon might have nothing to say but this:

“In some remote corner of the sprawling universe, twinkling among the countless solar systems, there was once a star on which some clever animals invented knowledge. It was the most arrogant, most mendacious minute in world history, but it was only a minute. After nature caught its breath a little, the star froze, and the clever animals had to die. And it was time, too: for although they boasted of how much they had come to know, in the end they realized they had gotten it all wrong. They died and in dying cursed truth. Such was the species of doubting animal that had invented knowledge.”

—Friedrich Nietzsche—
—“On the Pathos of Truth”—

"This would be man’s fate if he were nothing but a knowing animal. The truth would drive him to despair and destruction: the truth that he is eternally condemned to untruth. But all that is appropriate for man is belief in attainable truth, in the illusion, which draws near to man and inspires him with confidence. Does he not actually live by means of a continual process of deception? Does nature not conceal most things
from him, even the nearest things- his own body, for example, of which he has only a deceptive “consciousness”? He is locked within this consciousness and nature threw away the key. Oh, the fatal curiosity of the philosopher, who longs, just once, to peer out and down through a crack in the chamber of consciousness. Perhaps he will then suspect the extent to which man, in the indifference of his ignorance, is sustained by what is greedy, insatiable, disgusting, pitiless, and murderous- as if he were hanging in dreams on the back of a tiger."

https://onemorelibrary.com/index.php/en/?option=com_djclassifieds&format=raw&view=download&task=download&fid=3349

Fortunately, we do not have to look to Nietzsche--and his own gross 'deceptions' and 'ignorance'--in order to rationally assess truth, the meaning of life, and human nature!

Henry Bemis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Fortunately, we do not have to look to
> Nietzsche--and his own gross 'deceptions' and
> 'ignorance'--in order to rationally assess truth,
> the meaning of life, and human nature!

You know I cannot follow you in your faith, that truth, meaning and our ultimate nature can succumb to anything as paltry as rationality. And I should think your quoting the next parAgraph only makes that clearer.

Words (rationality) won’t cut it, my friend:

“Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murdered,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A stallion! Fie upon ’t! Foh!

—Hamlet (end of the 2nd Act)—

Like a talisman for pain, Harold Bloom repeats throughout his work a bit of hard wisdom from Nietzsche:

“Nietzsche memorably told us that we find words only for what is already dead in our hearts, so that there is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking. [Nietzsche] must have been aware that he was paraphrasing both Hamlet and the Player King…”

—The Western Canon—
—Harold Bloom—


Forget truth, meaning and our ultimate nature for a moment. Those are rather large, to say the least. Let’s take something simpler and closer to the heart: are there words enough to say the love you have for wife and children, or for something less like Gould’s Goldberg Variations? You don’t. If you were Shakespeare himself you wouldn’t. If you embodied the entire corpus of philosophy in all languages you couldn’t do such a simple thing.

Meaning isn’t a “knowing”, Henry, it’s an experience (an experience of pain, as Nietzsche has it).


Many mistakenly read poems or look at paintings and sculptures to “learn” something. How dreadful. Most of us wouldn’t listen to one of Haydn’s symphonies to “know” something, right? … Thatks enough, lunch time. Cheers, buddy.

Hi Human:

"You know I cannot follow you in your faith, that truth, meaning and our ultimate nature can succumb to anything as paltry as rationality. And I should think your quoting the next parAgraph only makes that clearer."

COMMENT: Rationality has served mankind reasonably well--especially considering the alternative. No one claims that rationality is perfect; or that all truth is accessible through rational inquiry.

But do we really need to resort to the absurd, anti-rationalist, nihilism of Nietzsche, and proclaim that 'truth' is nothing but illusion and deception? Where is the argument for that--beyond rhetorical pronouncements? More importantly, where do we go from there?
____________________________________________

"Like a talisman for pain, Harold Bloom repeats throughout his work a bit of hard wisdom from Nietzsche:

“Nietzsche memorably told us that we find words only for what is already dead in our hearts, so that there is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking. [Nietzsche] must have been aware that he was paraphrasing both Hamlet and the Player King…”

COMMENT: I call this at worst psycho-babble, and at best extremely bad philosophy. Please, please provide me with a rational argument that Nietzsche's nihilism (in any form you want, or by any articulation you want) has any connection with the reality of either the universe, the human condition, or human nature. It is nothing more than sound bites of despair. Plus, it allows those who are lazy about philosophy, science, and logic (rationality) to dismiss rationality in favor of some redeeming fallback in the form of art. Sorry, not buying it. "Faith" in a worldview centered on existential despair, is much worse that "faith" in rationality, coupled with a humanistic hope that we can makes things better.
______________________________________

"Forget truth, meaning and our ultimate nature for a moment. Those are rather large, to say the least. Let’s take something simpler and closer to the heart: are there words enough to say the love you have for wife and children, or for something less like Gould’s Goldberg Variations? You don’t. If you were Shakespeare himself you wouldn’t. If you embodied the entire corpus of philosophy in all languages you couldn’t do such a simple thing.

COMMENT: Of course, I agree with this! As I have argued forcefully on this Board many times! But this only makes my point. There is something within the nature of human beings that transcends rationality (as well as the nihilistic despair that rejects rationality). Realizing the limitations of science, truth, philosophy and rationality, does not and should not lead one to a conclusion that NOTHING is knowable; or that there is nothing ennobling, enlightening, or worthwhile in the pursuit of facts, evidence, and rational thought; or that existential despair is the only appropriate response to human limitations.
_______________________________________

Meaning isn’t a “knowing”, Henry, it’s an experience (an experience of pain, as Nietzsche has it).

COMMENT: No. Meaning is both knowing and experiencing. What could be more obvious? Experience without reflection is just a transitory perception; Understanding after reflection is what provides meaning to experience, and is what endures beyond experience.

__________________________________________

"Many mistakenly read poems or look at paintings and sculptures to “learn” something. How dreadful. Most of us wouldn’t listen to one of Haydn’s symphonies to “know” something, right? … Thatks enough, lunch time. Cheers, buddy.

COMMENT: Look, I am not qualified to opine about art--except my own approach to art and music. When I engage in such activities, it is indeed the experience that is front and center. But an experience is by definition an effect on one's personal being; it is an internalization. When I listen to Gould, I do learn something from the experience by my reaction to it; I am changed in subtle ways. Such an experience does not in any way diminish what I learn by reading Feynman's Lectures on Physics; in fact, it enhances it.

As usual, we completely miss each other. My fault.


Back to what I was talking about, I’ll leave something we8ve discussed before and agree on:

“Even if life as a whole is meaningless, perhaps that’s nothing to worry about. Perhaps we can recognize it and just go on as before. The trick is to keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, and allow justifications to come to an end inside your life, and inside the lives of others to whom you are connected. If you ever ask yourself the question, “But what’s the point of being alive at all?” —leading the particular life of a student or bartender or whatever you happen to be—you’ll answer “There’s no point. It wouldn’t matter if I didn’t exist at all, or if I didn’t exist at all, or if I didn’t care about anything. But I do. That’s all there is to it.”

Some people find this attitude perfectly satisfying. Others find it depressing, though unavoidable. Part of the problem is that some of us have an incurable tendency to take ourselves seriously. We want to matter to ourselves “from the outside.” If our lives as a whole seem pointless, then a part of us is dissatisfied—the part that is always looking over our shoulders at what we are doing. Many human efforts, particularly those in the service of serious ambitions rather than just comfort and survival, get some of their energy from a sense of importance—a sense that what you are doing is not just important to you, but in some larger sense: important, period. If we have to give up, it may threaten to take the wind out of our sails. If life is not real, life is not earnest, and the grave is the goal, perhaps it’s ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously, perhaps we just have to put up with being ridiculous. Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.”

—Thomas Nagel—
—What Does It All Mean—

As you know, I appreciate and respect Nagel enormously. However, I *do* take issue with his pessimistic, semi-nihilistic attitude in your quote. Here is how I would respond:

“Even if life as a whole is meaningless, perhaps that’s nothing to worry about. Perhaps we can recognize it and just go on as before. The trick is to keep your eyes on what’s in front of you, and allow justifications to come to an end inside your life, and inside the lives of others to whom you are connected."

COMMENT: I do not think human beings are in a position to make a definitive determination that "life as a whole is meaningless." It certainly appears that way philosophically, but the implications of such a view are both unnecessary and unacceptable. What bothers me is that it limits human responsibility "to what is in front of you," almost casually dismissing a broad sense of humanistic morality that extends beyond "those to whom [we] are connected." We are all connected; and we have moral intuitions that clearly and distinctly extend well beyond any 'meaningless' conclusion of life. Finally, metaphysical possibilities for a broader 'meaning of life' are sufficiently open to leave the matter unresolved--materialist philosophy notwithstanding. Such possibilities may include some sense of "God," but it need not. All that is needed is the expansive idea that the order, and improbable life friendliness that is revealed in the universe suggests some underlying agency, or purpose, which assigns a metaphysical meaning that is not accessible to us.
____________________________________________

"If you ever ask yourself the question, “But what’s the point of being alive at all?” —leading the particular life of a student or bartender or whatever you happen to be—you’ll answer “There’s no point. It wouldn’t matter if I didn’t exist at all, or if I didn’t exist at all, or if I didn’t care about anything. But I do. That’s all there is to it.”

COMMENT: Again, I think this is overly nihilistic; and philosophically unwarranted. The bare fact that "I do care" of itself suggests metaphysical uncertainty as to why I care, or why anyone cares. The fact that one cannot satisfy oneself as to what the ultimate metaphysical 'meaning of life' is does not imply that there are no metaphysical answers. And, if we are going to assume something, we should assume that such answers exist, not that they cannot exist because we have not found them.
_____________________________________

"Some people find this attitude perfectly satisfying. Others find it depressing, though unavoidable. Part of the problem is that some of us have an incurable tendency to take ourselves seriously. We want to matter to ourselves “from the outside.”

COMMENT: Is taking ourselves seriously supposed to be a fault? Is it supposed to be an illusion? If so, there *is* no point in life. Yet we all instinctively do just that. Why is this characterized as 'incurable?" Is it a disease? Nonsense! It is precisely what it means to be human. That alone should tell you something about the metaphysics underlying the 'meaning of life.' It is deep within human consciousness and human free will.
_______________________________________

"If our lives as a whole seem pointless, then a part of us is dissatisfied—the part that is always looking over our shoulders at what we are doing. Many human efforts, particularly those in the service of serious ambitions rather than just comfort and survival, get some of their energy from a sense of importance—a sense that what you are doing is not just important to you, but in some larger sense: important, period."

COMMENT: Our lives only seem pointless when we allow ourselves to be defined by materialist philosophy, and thereafter wallow in nihilism. Human efforts are directed in all sorts of places with all sorts of motivations; selfish and altruistic. Our intuitive moral sense suggests that how such efforts are directed, and how they are motivated, matter; both individually and in the larger sense. In other words, it seems that they are important 'period.' I am not willing to give this up because philosophers have not figured out the details.
_____________________________________

"If we have to give up, it may threaten to take the wind out of our sails. If life is not real, life is not earnest, and the grave is the goal, perhaps it’s ridiculous to take ourselves so seriously, perhaps we just have to put up with being ridiculous. Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.”

COMMENT: Enough already, Tom. Take a pill, a vacation, or whatever. Let's leave the wind in our sails. Life *is* real, and how we act before the grave matters. Doesn't history tell us that? In stark modern terms, will it not matter to future generations what we choose to do, or not do, regarding climate change? Fuck it! Life is meaningless and absurd, so let's just drink beer and watch football.

The truth is, words only can carry us so far into the realm of where we dare to maybe go [the deeper unknown's] and yet these mere words are all we the 'disabled' have at our disposal. We learn to think using words, we continually foul communication using words and yet we continue to maybe muddle along as prisoners handicapped in our world of words.

Think about it, for we always have said "Words fail me in trying to convey what happened, what I saw, and what I felt" and it is the truth.

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To tell the truth.

In more ways than one, to tell the truth about something is to unconsciously or consciously tell lies about other things.

Words reduce to simplify existence.

Anyone claiming to speak let alone know the truth is lying to you, themselves, and probably both of you.

What I think you are saying is that the mouthpiece of the Lord inventing truths you followed at one time pisses you off.

It’s all about the right words combined with the right actions with the emphasis on actions.

Some would say they don't know the truth themselves; they are mistaken; sincere.

I would say the know every last jot and tittle of what is a lie. They know the papyrus were funerary scrolls. They knew the peepstone was in the special vaults along with all the other secrets that MUST stay secret.

David O. MacKay learned his lesson after giving his niece Fawn Brodie access to some stuff in the vaults to help with her book. He was probably naive then but learned the hard way and was a big wake up call for the prophets who followed.

They know! They Know All. They have to in order to manage the fall out.

So yes, bradley. All the wasted time. On the treadmill. Being what they want you to be. While you tamp your true self down; hide your uniqueness. While, like me, you develop no personality at all as you be what they want you to be. All the years later trying to catch up with your peers.

You are awfully kind to only call them "lying POS". I have other words.

  
    I think it's all about "Authority" and belief in that authority.

    "Might makes right!" for sure works a lot of the time.  But "Right makes might!", probably not so much...

    Those pesky teenagers probably won't get off your lawn if all you can do is show them a copy of your deed. Compare that with showing them your shotgun...

    

My disrespect for authority may be at the root of the problem. Maybe I just don't like the 15 fuddyduds.

This thread went so deep I had to rent a diving bell. So are we saying on some level the church is true?

Suppose the truth is not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine. What if what we imagine _is_ the truth? In other words, it's true because you believe it. We may live in a world of utter BS, but it's BS that we all believe.

Moreover, we live both inside and outside of space-time. Bette Midler sang "God is watching us from a distance". Yeah, a Planck distance. The material world is seemingly objective, but what of the timeless world? What if it's all mind stuff?

That would make beliefs a matter of taste. As tasteless as I am sometimes, I don't think I'll develop a taste for Mormonism. The aftertaste leaves something to be desired.

As for truth, why not dream the impossible dream? To desire the truth, whatever truth we can understand, must surely lead somewhere.

With every mistake we must surely be learning.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2021 11:31PM by bradley.

>
> So are we saying on some
> level the church is true?
>
    
    
    Absolutely!

    There are people living their mormon lives based on their belief the church is true. How do you prove to such a person that he/she is living a lie?

    Most of us know that you can't.

    I can't decide if show titled, "When Truths Collide!", would draw an audience...   Knowing ahead of time that neither party would yield kind of makes it pointless.

Another way to think about this is by asking, were the lives lived before Copernicus any less real or authentic? They lived their entire lives, generations upon generations, under a Ptolemaic misunderstanding. Are we any more real or authentic than them just because six year olds today are less deluded about the solar system?

There are worse things in the world than going to the grave believing “blessed” bread and water makes for a better life.

"Another way to think about this is by asking, were the lives lived before Copernicus any less real or authentic? They lived their entire lives, generations upon generations, under a Ptolemaic misunderstanding. Are we any more real or authentic than them just because six year olds today are less deluded about the solar system?"

COMMENT: What is "real and authentic" as related to one's life mean? I have no idea. If it means 'purposeful,' then the answer it seems to me is that the lives of such persons living in a bygone pre-scientific age were equally purposeful. A person's life is 'real and authentic' as related to the choices they make, and the life they lead, within the full context of such life--even if that life was largely based upon false religious or scientific assumptions.
_______________________________________

"There are worse things in the world than going to the grave believing “blessed” bread and water makes for a better life."

COMMENT: Well, worse things, yes. But the point is whether one goes to the grave *knowing* that such beliefs were false (and/or *knowing* that the belief system that encompassed such beliefs-- and the institution propagating such beliefs--was false, morally deprived, and dangerous), or whether they go to the grave in innocent ignorance of such matters.

Respecting the legitimacy of moral judgments, in all their forms and varieties, requires that one take human free will, and moral responsibility, seriously. Such responsibility does not stop when one feels safely within some comfort zone of ignorance, if facts and knowledge are available to them.

The Church is not 'true' on *any* level! So, let's be clear about that. "The Church" represents a belief system, with a broad range of historical and doctrinal commitments that represent truth claims. Such claims are false. The fact that one or more persons achieve some level or personal satisfaction from participating in this fraud, and cannot be persuaded otherwise, is entirely beside the point, and has no bearing on the notion of truth. There is no such thing as relative truth; i.e. 'my truth,' and 'your truth.' That is post-modernist nonsense.

>
> The Church is not 'true'
> on *any* level!
>


        I support your outrage, but there is a real-world, very applicable standard that says, maybe even 'proves', that your POV is not valid.

        Which of the two statements is "true"?

1)    Life is precious and sacred

2)    Life is meaningless and worthless

        Can you see that it's in the eye of the beholder which one is true, and that an individual's actions will vary as you move along the continuum between 1) and 2)?

        The victims of a violent home invasion don't get to apply the standard of care during that event.

        "You have no right to do that!" are very sad 'last words'.

I support your outrage, but there is a real-world, very applicable standard that says, maybe even 'proves', that your POV is not valid.

COMMENT: It is not outrage, it is frustration.

__________________________________________

Which of the two statements is "true"?

1) Life is precious and sacred

2) Life is meaningless and worthless

Can you see that it's in the eye of the beholder which one is true, and that an individual's actions will vary as you move along the continuum between 1) and 2)?

________________________________

COMMENT: No! The eye of the beholder will only get you so far. Here's why:

These statements are certainly laced with value judgments, and you're right that there is a wide spectrum between the two where someone might fall by their own assessment. I would never deny that. But they also both carry empirical and metaphysical assumptions, which assumptions necessarily underlie and support such value judgments. Such assumptions are essentially truth claims. The one relates to truth claims about human experience generally (empirical), and the other truth claims about ultimate reality (metaphysical). In both cases, such assumptions may well be false. The fact that the truth or falsity of such underlying claims are unknowable, tends to provide a 'free pass' on the value judgment alone. But the point is that value judgments do not exist in a vacuum of facts and truth claims.

Now, given the fact that all value judgments are dependent upon some set of assumed 'facts of the matter,' the truth or falsity) of such facts determine the legitimacy of the value judgments they support. Any value judgment that is based upon false facts is delusional, and in that sense undermines its legitimacy. Consider, Mormonism, for example. Unlike your two examples above, the underlying factual claims supporting the faith related value judgment *are* assessable by rational inquiry.

So, for example, if a Mormon claims that their belief in Mormonism is merely a personal value judgment, they are mistaken. Again, values do not exist in a vacuum of facts. One can then ask, 'What facts underlie your value judgment? They will then respond presumably to the effect that JS was a prophet, the BoM is true, etc. etc. Again, these are truth claims that are assessable by rational inquiry. As such, they are not off the rationality hook simply because their faith involves a value judgment. That is because their value judgment is based upon demonstrable falsehoods. The only time this line of reasoning would not apply if someone insisted that truth does not matter to the legitimacy of one's values. Obviously, such a position would create havoc to the whole idea of values, as well as to morality generally.
________________________________________

The victims of a violent home invasion don't get to apply the standard of care during that event.

"You have no right to do that!" are very sad 'last words'.

COMMENT: Sad that may be, but most of us would say that such last words were nonetheless true.

bradley Wrote:
------------------------------
> To tell the truth.
>
> They'd have to have balls
> the size of truck nuts to
> even call themselves the
> mouthpiece of the Lord.
>


At least Hinckely was content with just being content with, "I am sustained as such."

And I suspect that Rusty will admit that his lighted pen needs batteries...